


all roads lead home

by GabbyD



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Family Feels, Gen, Holidays, Most relationships can be read as both romantic or platonic, Multi, POV Multiple, Past Abuse, Pre-Epilogue, Pre-Season/Series 02, Slice of Life, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 13:16:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13147491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GabbyD/pseuds/GabbyD
Summary: It’s the little things about Christmas that truly make it all feel like family. Or, how each character and group learns to cope with the events of the first season as they experience Christmas together for the first time.//For DGHDA Christmas Mini Big Bang.//





	all roads lead home

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2017 DGHDA Christmas Mini Big Bang, organized by the amazing mods of [DGHDA Big Bang](https://dghdabigbang.tumblr.com), who made this all possible so go check out the other works being posted right now in time for Christmas!
> 
> And a huge thanks to [Reitoeiru](http://reitoeiru.tumblr.com) for illustrating this fic with their stunning art, it wouldn't be the same without it! <3

Dirk never had a Christmas before.

He thought he might’ve, in another life under another name— _a little boy sat by a lit up tree, a paper crown on his head as he waited excitedly for someone to come down his chimney, a motherly laughter echoing in his ears at the silliness of it all,_ — but he knew it was useless to try and remember when exactly.

The words _repressed memory_ came into mind in the cold and apathetic voice of Blackwing’s very own head psychiatrist, together with many others such as _learned helplessness_ and _dissociation_.

It didn’t matter anyway.

What mattered was that _Dirk_ never had a Christmas, not until Todd.

...

The best part was that it hadn't been a big deal, or even something they had planned. When Christmas came Todd simply saw him looking at stores and went inside with a sigh to buy whatever had caught his eye.

Automatic, with no need for words, like it had always been a thing between the two.

Like they had many Christmases together before.

That made him more giddy than the holiday itself, and Dirk wasn't sure he'd ever get used to it. To the fact that he has a best friend now — and friends, more than one even!

That he had Todd.

So he went on a rant of Santa hats vs. Paper crowns, which bored the other enough that Dirk managed to shove the Elf hat on him, only to get a mock-affronted answer and glare.

“It fits you!” he defended.

Dirk laughed as the man spat an angry reply but didn't remove the accessory, only to run away when Todd came running at him with a customized Santa hat minutes later not caring they were in public.

“You know they're inferior! I just told you, Todd, the hats have no charm whatsoever—!”

He was caught.

“There,” Todd said smugly, adjusting the hat on Dirk’s head. “Now you look as stupid as I do.”

He was smiling, brightly, no trace of the grumpy man he first met. Todd looked just as happy as Dirk felt.

Dirk could hug him.

Instead, he pouted. “But why does it have to be _pink_?”

He’d always remember the laughter that followed. And it was enough to forget anything else.

...

Once a year, in a governmental facility, a boy would be sat in front of a comatose man with the only instructions to do as he seemed fit while being told it was a gift to be thankful for. He never learns the occasion, and he never learns why. They don’t see it important to tell him.

But each year without fault Riggins would leave him there for a few hours before taking him back to his room.

He didn’t mind, really, far too used to it by now to even protest.

All he knew was that he had a friend who never interrupted his stories and was always nice in his quiet never-woke-up way, and that, for those few hours, there were no tests to be made. He could pretend as much as he liked.

 _“Project Moloch continues without any change,”_ he never heard be spoken in another room, minutes before the guards always came to grab him. _“Project Icarus has failed, again. Test over.”_

Instead he smiled at his assistant, the first and only he had, and finished what he was saying.

Maybe one day he’d have a friend who talks back.

…

There wasn’t much Amanda knew about her boys from before. They didn’t like talking about it, only spoke in references and half-spoken words almost as if they expected her to understand without it needing to be said. As if she’d been one of them since the beginning. And what she knew, well, what little she knew wasn’t good.

She saw it in the way they’d refuse to do normal things with whispers of _‘no more tests, no more games’,_ or how at times they’d wake up screaming from nightmares. How close they all were, shamelessly all over each other and always knowing exactly what the other needs.

“They won’t get you too, drummer girl,” Cross told her once in a voice devoid of all emotions but fear and dead seriousness as he rambled, and the others nodded as they held them both in arms. “We won’t let them, no. We won’t, not you, not any of us.”

She remembers how Gripps shivered behind her. “We protect you.”

They hadn't told her what the nightmare was about, but she could guess. She could see in the protective way Martin was hovering over all of them, and how spooked Vogel had been. Only the past affected them that way.

“You're one of us,” Martin echoed, “and we protect our own.”

Words weren't necessary between them. Still, she tried to understand her rowdy boys.

Amanda saw pieces at how in awe Vogel looked at every Christmas decoration, as if it was the first he'd ever seen, even taking some under his arm to hide away in their van completely fascinated by the shine and colors.

She saw it when Gripps stopped her from shattering a Reindeer statue, his face closed off and the others close-by watching. “Little sisters like it,” was the explanation the quiet man gave, “don't hurt it.”

He didn’t say whose little sisters. He didn’t have to.

She saw it in the way Cross got quieter and quieter, and how Martin would get even more protective - always close to everyone - and would even sneak away little things for each of them.

It was different from anything Amanda ever had, from every holiday she ever celebrated, but she didn’t mind. They were the Rowdy Three.

“And we protect each other.”

People were afraid as they destroyed the Christmas decorations of a few houses all over the small city, some screamed and some ran, but all Amanda could see in the Rowdies’ eyes was glee at it all as they laughed and laughed and laughed. Happy at the mayhem they had created.

And she knew she was home.

…

Ken watched, almost in awe, as Bart took down a group of men with only a machete and her bloody Santa Claus outfit that was a touch too big for her bony body, having been stolen from a mall Santa who the universe sent their way and all.

Doing as she felt right, so sure of herself and of her place in the world.

She gave him a sense of purpose he never had before, a sense of belonging, like they simply fit together.

It was not long after that all the targets fell to the ground, Bart standing in the middle of the sea of corpses bloody and untouched, looking exactly like the vengeful angel Ken thought her as.

She smiled at him, proud of her work like a child would be proud of a drawing, and he gave her two thumbs-up in approval.

What once scared him now made him smile fondly.

“Tell me—tell me the thing again,” Bart asked in the car, scratchy giggles filling the vehicle as she bounced excitedly. “The story with the flying guy.”

Ken didn't try to fight his smile at it.

“Santa? He doesn’t fly, his reindeers do. He lives in North Pole and gives presents to children everywhere in the world in just one night.” He didn't know what was in her strange mind, so he completed: “It's just a story for kids though, you know, a Christmas thing to tell them. It's not real.”

Though in the world they lived in, who knew anymore. The only certainty Ken had anymore was Bart.

“Right!” She laughed, still not used to the sound of her own happiness. “Reindeers can't fly, _duh._ They don’t exist. What a strange story to tell.” Bart patted his shoulder once with her weapon and the act didn't make him flinch as it once would; he trusted her. “Oh Ken, you come up with a lot of weird stuff in that brain of yours.”

“That’s not—I didn't—”

“Come on, tell me the story again!”

 

And Ken did, entirely too exasperated and fond for his own good, giving as many details as Bart asked for while trying to not think what kind of childhood she had before to not know Christmas.

Excited for a holiday he never cared for just so he could show it to her, and watch her reactions firsthand making it all worth it, warmth spreading through his chest.

Ken finally understood the meaning of Christmas.

So they continued their way, just the two of them with a stolen dog in the backseat and whatever bad guys the universe will throw on their path to die.

_Together._

…

They never went a Christmas without each other.

Todd knew the road to being forgiven was still a long one and it had only just begun, that he didn’t deserve it and Amanda was all within her rights to not give it to him after all his lies, and he understood that.

Hell, he deserved that, no matter how much he missed his little sister.

But it’s when he received a small christmas card with Amanda and the Rowdy Three in the front, all five looking angry with their middle fingers up and wearing different parts of one single Santa costume, that he understood that no matter how long the path he has to take was, the steps were already being made.

That she missed him too.

And the more he stared at the card and the _‘You’re still an asshole’_ written on the back together with a crudely done number three, the more he understood the message behind it. And no, it wasn’t just that he was still an asshole, regardless of how much that was true.

It was Amanda reassuring him she was still there, not letting him go even one Christmas without something from her no matter how angry. To assure him she was not alone, with her new little misfit family just like his own. That she was ok.

_I’m here. I’m far away and I don’t forgive you, not now and not yet, but I’m here._

_We’re family._

And yes, of course, that he’s still an asshole.

…

When the time came, Farah sent her father a Christmas card and a letter.

In it, she wished him well, talked about how Eddie was doing, told him about Lydia being saved and Patrick Springs’ death—how she had failed him but done right by Lydia—and talked about her plans.

Farah told him everything she could think of, and everything she knew he’d want to know.

All of it sounded a lot more like a professional report from an employer than what was expected from a daughter—too much statistics while missing the heart, something said to her a lot— but she knew her father could read it just as well and understand; it was a language they both speak, the only language he understood.

And he always understood her.

She waited, almost expectedly though she pretended otherwise, for his response. Farah waited days and days for it.

But the response never came.

Maybe one day she’d stop pretending it would ever come.

…

The beer in his hands was warm already, but Estevez knew the taste wouldn’t bother him as he sat numbly in their favorite bar. _Their_ , his and Zimmerfield’s, where they would sit at after every case, every conquest and every loss.

A place they made their own.

And now he sits there alone, with only the memory of his old partner for company. The case was over, Lydia had been saved and put back in her own body, but Zimmerfield hadn’t been there to see the end of it all.

In a way, it made it feel even less real. The fact that it was finally solved and over with, the sheer craziness of it all… the loss.

Outside the bar a choir of children started to sing something surely meant to be far less melancholic than what he was hearing, and he remembered sitting in that exact same spot years before wearing an elf hat and listening as Zimmerfield explained to him Hanukkah for the first time.

Was there even a point without their very own mixed holiday and traditions?

Was there a point at all without _him_?

Estevez took another swing of his beer before leaving, the bartender not stopping him out of sheer sympathy, and decided that he wouldn’t want this for him - to be depressed and caught in the holiday blues. They saved a little girl, that’s why they were in the force and missing persons in the first place, and he should be proud. He is proud.

Zimmerfield died in duty so they could save Lydia, and Estevez would keep at that to save even more.

 _After_ he got wasted, of course. No point in facing the holiday sober.

…

They watched as she danced, happily as they laugh with her, in the middle of the place they called their hideout. She’d do that sometimes—Amanda would—move regardless of whether they have music playing or not, sometimes even making some of the guys join her, Vogel more times than not but Gripps and Cross, too.

Martin on occasion.

Always living at their fullest, and always doing it together.

She moved frenetic to the beats of a holiday song they’d heard a long time ago, freed from the lies and from the fear—of herself and of the demons in her head that made it _hurt, hurt, hurt_. She hurts now instead of being hurt, and she dances, with her family all around her as she does so.

A Rowdy girl through and through.

And so they watch.

…

Bart didn’t know about Christmas, nor did she care.

She didn’t understand why every year for a while the cities would look different, or why the songs on the radio changed and what they talked about. It never made a difference to her before.

It did now.

She didn’t need to understand it, not really, all Bart cared about was Ken’s smile when he saw the broken radio and laptop she got from the universe— and the latest target’s car— for him as a gift just like he had said people did. Ken smiled even bigger as she jumped excited that she had gotten it right, and they both laughed together at it.

Bart didn’t need to know about things; she had Ken already.

That was enough for her.

“Is the universe telling you to go somewhere?” he’d asked as they put everything in the stolen car, still smiling at the gift. Bart had guessed already that, like her, he hadn’t gotten any before either. “Why don’t we go kill some people?”

That was more than she ever expected to have, and she couldn’t be happier.

For the first time she wasn’t alone.

…

It was Farah’s first holiday spent without the Spring family.

She's used to the big celebration they used to throw, unorthodox in the way they always were but always so loving, lights and colors everywhere as they mixed traditions.

A smiling Lydia always surrounded by her gifts.

Farah and her family were welcome ever since her father first started working for them, never once treated as anything less than family. Like she belonged.

 _“You are family, Farah!”_ Lydia used to remind her every year. _“It wouldn't be the same without you.”_

It got smaller after the death of Lydia’s mother, the house seemed more empty, and her father smiled less. Both of their fathers did.

But nonetheless at Christmas they'd be there, warm like only a true family could be.

She missed them.

Lydia was safe far away from there, and the rest of the Springs were dead. Farah’s father was retired and her brother overseas.

But she missed them.

A laughter pulled her out of her thoughts, reminding her as she looked at Dirk and Todd tease each other that it didn't mean she was alone. That she never would be, not with those two around.

Farah had a new family to protect.

…

They sit around Todd’s broken up apartment, cheap Christmas decorations lightening up the place as they join the destroyed furniture and spray painted walls in a way that shouldn’t make any sense but does in the odd little way his life now works.

That their whole relationship works, really.

It’s new yet natural, as if they were always meant to know each other, and it makes no sense whatsoever but just _works_. There’s something magical but inherently simple about the whole thing, about how the three of them fit together.

They’re laughing and sharing booze, so carefree you wouldn’t believe weeks before they stopped a cult of soul-swapping weirdos led by a failed dead musician by travelling through time and solving the big mystery. But now, in his shithole of an apartment, they’re almost normal. Just three normal friends enjoying the holidays. Dirk is all the way from tipsy to downright drunk, proudly wearing the Santa hat Todd gave him yet still insisting on the whole paper crown thing, as Farah sits near him excitedly telling them an old story back from when she was still training— only the shine in her eyes and the loose laughter to tell she’s not entirely unaffected either— with Dirk holding her arm in a grip, paying attention to every word and nodding accordingly, looking at Farah as if she hung the moon.

And Todd just watches them, entirely too fond and mushy to be anywhere even close to sober, thinking about how different his life is now that the two crash-landed into it. He lost his job, his apartment is a goner and his sister may never speak to him again, but he has friends now, actual friends— he has a _family_.

And he’s not lying anymore.

For the first time in years, Todd’s not completely ashamed of who he is. Quite the opposite, no, he’s happy. He’s actually doing something with his life and just… living. _Taking control._ Accepting the consequences with open arms but not hiding anymore, not lying. It’s a relief to be able to do that.

And now he has Dirk and Farah right by his side.

They know who he is, what he’s done, and yet they stick with him anyway.

He looks around at the wrappers thrown around, the few presents he can see from where he’s is,— _the ‘world’s okayest detective’ mug he got Dirk, and the jean jacket Dirk got him to repay for the one lost in the ghost-rhino accident. The engraved plaque Farah got them both, to symbolize the beginning of a long partnership,—_ and the tiny plastic tree Farah bought sitting right in the middle of his trashed living room, and only one word crosses his mind:

Home.

...

  
A Rowdy Christmas Card by [Reitoeiru](http://reitoeiru.tumblr.com)

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to leave kudos and comments if you guys liked it, as they feed the author's hungry soul! <3 You can find me @ remuslupinsmiled on tumblr, please feel free to talk to me at any time.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed it and happy holidays to all! <3


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